Discovery retires as NASA’s most traveled shuttle orbiter, covering more than 148 million miles in 39 missions that included the delivery of the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit. Operational from 1984 through 2011, Discovery spent a total of one year in space.

Want to know more about how a space shuttle travels around on Earth? Check out this video at NASA. And at Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait shared his mixed emotions about the shuttle.

The Atlantic have an interview with Alberto Conti, Innovation Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope and ex-Archive Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, about how data changes the way astronomy is done.

If those Cassini images from the recent fly-by aren’t enough for you, check out this video by Sander van der Berg compiled using footage from NASA’s Cassini and Voyager missions. Even if you think you’ve already had your fill of beautiful space pictures for this week, still watch it. Trust me.

While we’re on the topic of out-of-this-world images, Matthew Francis has a thoughtful post that asks “Are Astronomical Images All Faked?” In keeping with Daily Mail tradition of posing questions-to-which-the-answer-is-no in headlines, he doesn’t think they are.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. Is there anything you think I missed? Feel free to add it in the comments.

About the Author: Kelly Oakes has a master's in science communication and a physics degree, both from Imperial College London. Now she spends her days writing about science.
Follow on Twitter @kahoakes.